Love and a Cough: Part One
by eoriel
Summary: Dreams can sometimes be more vivid than reality. JC.


**Love And A Cough**

Part 1: The Dream

It was dark. There was nothing to see but the black. Squinting, he looked harder. No, there was someone here with him, someone approaching. He could hear soft footsteps now, like bare feet on stone. The darkness in front of him undulated, rippling black on black. He reached out a hand, not seeing it in front of him but feeling the air parting.

"Hello?" he whispered.

A sigh, perhaps in response or perhaps just the wind, was the only answer floating through the void.

He waited. He knew there was a reason for this dream. He dropped his hand and waited, patient, for the meaning of the dream to reveal itself.

Two amber eyes blinked at him from the darkness, close to him, closer than he expected. He breathed in sharply. "Black Jaguar." The eyes smiled at him. They were changing. Changing from amber, like oil into water, changing to ice blue, slowly. They blinked once more at him and closed, disappearing, fading back into the black. He squinted, trying to find a trace of where they might have gone, but there was nothing.

The wind grew stronger. At first lightly, but more insistent as it grew, he could feel it tousling his hair. It smelled clean, refreshing, cleansing. He breathed in deeply, feeling illumination start in the pit of his stomach and spread throughout his body. It bubbled under his skin, traveling through him, until finally it shot out the ends of his fingers, the ends of his toes, the top of his head. He became a being of light.

The darkness shrank back, as if offended and frightened of his luminance. Brilliant white light filled the emptiness, shooting from his hands and feet, enveloping him in warmth, releasing him from the cold of the black that had been before. It went on and on, and he felt as though there had never been that uncertainty of the void before.

In the distance, the white surged brightly for a moment, as if splitting itself and the space it now filled down the center in a perfect line. He shielded his eyes with his hand. Colour bled from the tear, a decadent red fading to pink to peach to flesh, and solidified. A long pale leg emerged, followed by another. As the brilliant white faded again, he could see more: feminine curves, slim arms, hair down and flowing, outlined against the light.

It was a woman. He watched in awe as She walked toward him, features obscured by his own shining. Her hair blew in the once-more soft wind, darkening with each step She took back to red. The only thing he knew for sure about Her was that Her eyes were the same ones he had seen in the darkness, the amber ones that had turned icy blue. They were still smiling.

A laugh came from behind him. Soft laughter, like everything else about this dream, just barely enough to hear but somehow right there in his ears. But he knew this laugh. He knew the laugh, just as, suddenly, he knew who She was.

"Kathryn?"

And there she was, standing in front of him, a long flowing white dress clinging to her body like a second skin, her hair wonderfully messy, her face glowing with laughter and her eyes still shining, still smiling. She reached up to stroke his cheek, run her fingers down his jaw. The other hand fluttered up too, tracing his left eyebrow with one long finger. She cupped his face, drawing it down to hers, and softly placed her lips on his.

They melted into one another, white light surrounding them, welcoming them, holding them. His arms came around her waist. She was so smooth yet so solid in his embrace. Small pieces of his heart began to crumble as they kissed. He could feel the fragments falling through him, past his feet, into the white oblivion. Her hands, tangled in his hair, brushed past his ears, tracing his throat, resting with palms flattened against his chest, dislodging that last lingering piece of his heart.

He never wanted to wake up. The dream that has started so mysteriously had become beautiful, vibrant, everything he could have asked for. He thought that he could hold on to her, make it last forever, but he knew, as soon as that last part of his broken heart fell, that he was waking. He felt lighter, less tangible, and he knew.

She drew away from him, caressing his cheek once more, laying her soft lips once more on his. He fisted his hands in her dress, not wanting to let go, but his body became mist. As long as he could, he kept his eyes on her laughing gaze. The white faded to grey, fading into black again. The blue blue eyes smiling at him blinked and were gone once more. He was surfacing into his own body once more.

He woke, but kept his eyes closed, savouring the last lingering tendrils of the dream. And somewhere far away but right beside him, he heard her say his name like she was breathing.

"Chakotay."


End file.
